Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Thoughts from New York

Sarah talked about the ceremony and reception and the honeymoon. I will mention the points of the honeymoon that I remember.

1. Cab drivers in New York are really something else. We had one lady cursing up a storm that would make the most foul-mouthed sailor blush.

2. Lanes in New York are merely suggestions. We had cab drivers riding in two lanes for as much as a block at times.

3. Many of the diners and restaurants did not provide free refills. I was not a big fan of that.

4. Sandwiches in New York were overfilled with meat. Sarah ordered a club at Sarge's and she had to eat it in sections.

5. There is a ticket booth at the Marriott Marquis at 46th and Broadway that sells same day show tickets at half price. We got great seats each time.

6. The Marriott Marquis has a rooftop restaurant that rotates. The View rotates every 80 minutes and provides a great view of the city.

7. It can get hot in New York City. We knew it was a possibility, but if we wanted 95 degree weather and humidity we could have been at home in Birmingham for that.

8. New York City Harbor Cruise is great. We took the three hour cruise (save the Gilligan's Island jokes). There were great views of the Statue of Liberty and Yankee Stadium. I knew that the Rockefeller's were wealthy, but the cruise really shed light on how they may have had as much money as God.

9. Our tour guide was great. He was actually named the New York City Tour Guide of the Year 2006. His whole tour is in a book he wrote, Unique New York.

10. We stayed at the Affinia Dumont and it was wonderful. Our initial room was on the 9th floor. We asked for a higher room and the next day we were moved to the 29th floor with a great view.

11. The view from the top of the Empire State Building is everything it is cracked up to be. The price to go to the top was more reasonable than I had thought. Plus, it was only a few blocks from our hotel.

12. Foreigners are funny. A young gal brought her family from Germany to see Chicago and her uncle was a trip.

13. Jet Blue got some bad press this last winter for essentially trapping people on a flight for 9 hours on the runway. However, our experience was great. Normally I fly Delta. Jet Blue had a great deal going on plus each seat has its own TV.

14. Visiting Yankee Stadium was everything I had imagined. We got last minute tickets from Ticketmaster. It felt like it was going to rain in the first inning, but it passed and the rest of the evening was comfortable. We had hot dogs, beer, Cracker Jacks. The only negative was the A's lost. Oh well.

15. Using mass transit to the game was the environmentally sensitive thing to do. Getting back on the subway after the game was an adventure. It was rough battling through the crowd out of the stadium and up the platform. Once we got to the platform it was fine.

16. The worst part of the game were the annoying Yankees fans after the victory. I wish I could have been there for the final two games of the series when they got owned. I bet they weren't so full of it then.

17. We saw a number of shows in New York: Curtains on Sunday afternoon, Les Miserables on Monday, Swan Lake Ballet at the Met on Tuesday, Inherit the Wind on Wednesday afternoon, Phantom of the Opera on Wednesday night, and Chicago on Thursday night.

18. We dressed up for the shows and were appalled to see how many people showed up in casual clothes. It was apparent that people do not respect the theater!

19. The Bronx Zoo was real cool. We got there early in the afternoon and missed out on some stuff, but we were able to see the penguins being fed. They were so cute.

20. We didn't use the subway all that often and I guess that would explain the lack of freakshows that we met. A fact I will not complain about.

21. New York City is one of the holy sites for shopping and this was not a fact lost on us. We spent the better part of Monday and Tuesday shopping. The other attraction of the shops was the air conditioning. Sarah even got to go to Tiffany and Co.

22. There is no sales tax on clothing in New York City.

* Pictures to follow as soon as we put them on the computer